Almost half of the 67 journalists killed worldwide in 2012 were
targeted and murdered for their work, research
by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows. The vast majority covered
politics. Many also reported on war, human rights, and crime. In almost half of
these cases, political groups are the suspected source of fire. There has been
no justice in a single one of these deaths.

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One
year ago, on July 28, 2011, Ahmad Omaid
Khpalwak,
25, was killed by American troops during a brutal close-quarters battle with a Taliban
suicide squad backed by gunmen. Khpalwak was one of 22 people killed in the hours-long
siege on government buildings that included the governor's office and police
headquarters in Tarin Kot, capital of Uruzgan province. A reporter for the
BBC, Pajhwok Afghan News, and several other organizations, Khpalwak died with
11 bullet wounds in his body. He was shot in a government-run newsroom while waving
his press card and declaring in English that he was a journalist. It's fair to
ask, one year after Khpalwak died, if any lessons have been learned. The odds that
a journalist could be killed by U.S. forces' fire seem, unfortunately, to be as
high as ever.

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For now, the Afghan government's apparent attempt at
railroading through a less-than-media-friendly new Mass Media Law without
consultation seems to have been sidelined, though not derailed. On Sunday in
Kabul, representatives of the Ministry of Information and Culture received
recommendations from civil society workers and journalists, including some
from the provinces, which were drawn up at a June 27 meeting organized by Internews's Nai
Media Institute in Afghanistan.

Danish Karokhel,
who won a CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2008, messaged this morning
concerned that the news agency he runs, Pajhwok
Afghan News, and some other media outlets have been referred to the Attorney
General's Office by the Ministry of Information and Culture for reporting on an
alleged bribery scandal involving a member of Parliament. The action was taken
by the ministry's Media Monitoring Commission, and could lead to criminal
charges.

After
the Salvadoran online newsmagazine El
Faro exposed a secret government deal with criminal gangs last month, its
staff faced repercussions that illustrate the new and complicated risks facing
journalists worldwide. El Faro'sreport, which said
the government provided more lenient treatment of imprisoned gangsters in
exchange for the groups' agreement to slow down their murderous practices,
addressed one of the most sensitive topics facing journalists today--crime and
its many interconnections with government.

Wednesday, the Afghanistan Analysts Network
(AAN) released its report, "Death
of an Uruzgan Journalist: Command Errors and Collateral Damage," by Kate
Clark on the July 2011 shooting death of journalist Omaid Khpalwak.
Clark's details on how Khpalwak died corroborate and then go beyond the
investigation already conducted by the U.S.-led NATO forces who were
responsible. Her report was important to write, and is important to read.

"Of course you have to go to Afghanistan or
to Syria," said French TV reporter Hervé Ghesquière, who was held
hostage for 547 days in Afghanistan together with his cameraman, Stéphane
Taponier, between December 2010 and June 2011.

CPJ's María Salazar-Ferro names the 12 countries where journalists are murdered regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. Where are leaders failing to uphold the law? Where are conditions getting better? And where is free expression in danger? (4:46)